David Levithan Explores Gay Teenage Love in ‘Two Boys Kissing’

Author David Levithan likes to defy expectations. Ten years ago, his breakthrough Young Adult novel “Boy Meets Boy” was a big hit both critically and commercially, with several reviewers praising the book as groundbreaking in its optimistic, upbeat and funny approach to queer YA literature, a precursor of sorts to TV shows such as “Glee.” That same adventurous spirit seems to carry through many of his other novels, which include “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist“ (coauthored with Rachel Cohn), “Will Grayson” (coauthored with John Green) and the newly out-in-paperback “Every Day.”

Levithan’s latest novel is “Two Boys Kissing,” based on real life events, and told from the posthumous perspective of a chorus of gay men who lost their lives to AIDS. The book centers on 17-year-olds Harry and Craig, who are attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest kiss. The narrators jump back and forth from this marathon kissing session, interweaving the tales of two other teen couples, Neil and Peter, working through the kinks of their (relatively) long-term relationship, and Avery and Ryan, braving their first date while navigating the tricky terrain of gender identity. Lastly, there is Cooper, by himself, stuck in the world of online hookup apps.

“Two Boys Kissing” couldn’t have arrived at a more timely moment, just months after the Supreme Court decision on gay marriage. The shift in society’s attitudes towards the LGBT community has long been embraced by many in the young adult crowd. Levithan seems to intuitively understand this generation—and his new book allows him to bring their particular struggles and joys to life.

I asked David some questions about the book by email. Here are his responses.

Starting off with a little reality check: do the two boys who you based the book on (Matty and Bobby) still hold the record for the world’s longest kiss? Is it true that the world-record seekers are never allowed to separate lips—no breaks, not even for the bathroom?

David Levithan: Alas, they do not – but they did for a time. And, yes, their lips did not stop touching the whole time.

One of the more surprising elements in this book is your choice of POV: the collective first person, i.e., the “We,” something you rarely see even in literary fiction, let alone in YA fiction. What compelled you toward this choice?

The narrative voice actually came from a story I wrote for an anthology edited by Michael Cart, “How Beautiful the Ordinary.” He asked many wonderful authors to write a story about contemporary LGBT teens. I wanted to do something I didn’t think any of the authors would do, and something I hadn’t done before, and became caught up in the idea of adding the dimensionality of time to the usually portrait of the current generation. And the way to do that, I thought, was to give voice to the gay generation that came before mine, and let them observe and convey the story. It is certainly a rare device – and I’ll admit I didn’t even realize it was akin to a Greek chorus until my editor referred to it as a Greek chorus – but I wasn’t really worried about it. It is so essential to the book that I can’t imagine the story told any other way.

This year you celebrated the 10th anniversary of the publication of your first book, “Boy Meets Boy,” which has been hailed as a groundbreaking work in queer fiction. What has changed in 10 years, aside from the obvious (social media, internet)?

Well, the obvious is what’s most interesting, isn’t it? The way we see and experience the world and assemble and share our identity is so radically different now. And, also obvious, the sea change on equal rights has moved far more rapidly than most of us would have imagined possible. On a smaller scale, YA literature has changed, in terms of LGBT themes. And I don’t think I could have written the novel without the 10 years and 15 novels that came before it. I wouldn’t have been ready or able to write it the way I wrote it now.

You mention in the acknowledgments that your gay “generation” is a very short one – one that came of age after the AIDS generation but before the “Internet” generation. I wonder if somehow coming of age between those generations—much as I did—has compelled you to write about the stark differences between them. Is there some desire on your part to help this new generation of LGBT youth understand that they are part of a long fought historic struggle?

We had the world change on us twice, in such monumental ways, didn’t we? We came of age in the shadow of death, and then watched as it turned into such unexpected – but still incomplete – brightness. How could that not affect us? We were robbed of so many of the men who would have been our role models. But now we get to be the bridge, and convey what was lost to the people who gained. We have to prevent the disconnect, and writing a novel was a way for me to do that.

What compels you towards writing about and for this age group? How has YA fiction changed? The market seems to be more popular than ever.

If you want to find emotional truths, authors writing without a net, as clear a reflection of what life is like now – YA has all of that. And our readers are teens and adults – there’s really no distinction in audience or seriousness in purpose between what I do and what, say, Michael Chabon does. Read M. T. Anderson’s “Feed.” Read Nick Burd’s “The Vast Fields of Ordinary.” Read Siobhan Vivian’s “The List.” Read Libba Bray’s “Going Bovine.”I could recommend books for hours, and only scratch the surface.

If we can talk about Cooper for a second. His story certainly lends a darker undertone to an otherwise relatively upbeat book. There seems to be—and correct me if I’m wrong here—a thinly-veiled distaste/criticism of online hook-up apps such as Grindr in the book. Are the online apps really all that different from say, the bathhouses of the ’70s? And on some level, are you hoping to discourage the younger generation from relying too much on these apps?

I don’t think it’s distaste/criticism so much as it’s concern for the effect that it would have on a kid like Cooper, who is trying to fragment and distract himself into oblivion. A bathhouse is a physical place that you would have to go to, and usually went to when you were an adult. An app is something you carry around in your pocket, that you can spend an endless amount of time on, that you can use no matter what age you are, without anyone else around. I think the narrators see that distinction, and the implications of that distinction, especially for a lost, messed-up teenager in a hostile home.

“Some of our parents, when they found out we were sick, stopped being dragons and became dragonslayers instead. Sometimes that’s what it takes—the final battle. But it should take much, much less than that.”

I want to tie this line from the book in to what was easily the most moving—personally—moment in the book for me, when Neil chastises his parents for not “hearing” the homophobia on the radio, for listening and saying nothing. He then forces both his mother and father to not only acknowledge but say, out loud, that their son is gay.

That’s one of my favorite scenes in the book as well, and it was not planned at all. It just happened and I went with it. I don’t really want to diminish it by explaining it. But I certainly agree that “tolerance” is not enough. We deserve respect.

Eric Sasson writes “Ctrl-Alt,” Speakeasy’s column on alternative culture. He is the author of “Margins of Tolerance.” You can follow him on Twitter @idazleior visit his website here.